


a brighter morning

by Sixteenthdays



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Fix-It, Gen, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, this is literally just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:47:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28697178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixteenthdays/pseuds/Sixteenthdays
Summary: “Morning, Tommy,” Wilbur says with a wave.Tommy, rather rudely, does not wave back. What he does is stare and make an incoherent sort of squawking noise, as though Wilbur is a stranger trespassing in their house and not literally his older brother (Wilbur even checks over his shoulder to make sure there’s nobody behind him, but no, it’s just him).Wilbur is halfway through asking, “Tommy, are you oka-“ when Tommy crashes into him in a hug that’s almost more of a tackle or maybe a body-slam, sending both of them crashing to the floor with enough force to drive the air right out of Wilbur’s lungs.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 673
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	a brighter morning

Wilbur has been on the SMP for a total of about twelve days when Tommy wakes up and chooses violence.

Well, that’s not the first thing that happens. The _first_ thing that happens is that Wilbur is still blinking awake, muffling a yawn into his hand, when Tommy shuffles down the stairs, rounds a corner, sees him, and freezes in place, shoulders locking up and eyes going wide.

“Morning, Tommy,” Wilbur says with a wave.

Tommy, rather rudely, does not wave back. What he does is stare and make an incoherent sort of squawking noise, as though Wilbur is a stranger trespassing in their house and not literally his older brother (Wilbur even checks over his shoulder to make sure there’s nobody behind him, but no, it’s just him).

Wilbur is halfway through asking, “Tommy, are you oka-“ when Tommy crashes into him in a hug that’s almost more of a tackle or maybe a body-slam, sending both of them crashing to the floor with enough force to drive the air right out of Wilbur’s lungs.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he gasps out as soon as he’s got air again, tries to shove himself up into a sitting position, which is a little difficult with a teenager still clinging onto him like a limpet. “Tommy, get _off_ , what the _fuck_ -“

He cuts off.

Tommy is shaking.

Tommy is shaking and he’s _crying_ , face pressed into Wilbur’s chest like when he was a little kid, and Wilbur brings his arms up to wrap around him without even really thinking about it.

“Tommy?” Wilbur asks carefully. “What’s wrong?”

“Shut up,” Tommy mumbles, releasing his vice grip on Wilbur’s shoulders like he’s been burned to scrub frantically at his eyes. “Shut _up_ , I’m _fine_.”

Tommy has never been a good liar, but this is maybe the least convincing he’s ever been. “Tommy-“

“Shut up. Just- just shut up, okay, fuck off, I’m fine,” Tommy mumbles around his hands, sitting back on his heels, which is pretty hypocritical considering he just nearly cracked Wilbur’s spine against the floor, but whatever.

Wilbur, for once, doesn’t say anything. For once, he is honestly, genuinely lost. He just sits, lost for words, and waits for Tommy to finish drying his eyes and getting himself back under control, or at least as under control as he ever is.

“When- um. What’s today?” Tommy asks eventually.

“…Monday?”

“What _month_.”

“What- July- Tommy, did you hit your head?” Wilbur asks, bafflement breaking for a moment to make room for genuine concern.

“No, shut up. Where are we?”

“The… Dream SMP?” Wilbur says carefully. “You know this, man, you’ve been here longer than I have.”

“No, I know _that_ ,” Tommy says, looking at him like he’s an idiot, which is a bold move considering of the two of them Wilbur is definitely the only one firing on all cylinders right now. “I mean, are we… is this in L’Manburg, or…?”

Wilbur blinks blankly at him for a moment. “La-what?”

“Oh,” Tommy says, and then, again, “oh.”

He hesitates, then flicks open his inventory. Wilbur’s not sure what he sees in there to make a grin suddenly snap across his face, but all at once he’s scrambling to his feet, nearly tripping over himself in his haste to make it to the door.

“Tommy, are you going to tell me what the _fuck’s_ going on?” Wilbur asks as he climbs to his feet as well, feeling torn between irritation, confusion, and concern.

“Sorry, Wil, no time, I gotta go find Tubbo!” Tommy says, sounding so excited it’s almost manic. He yanks the door open without another word, hurries out into the morning sun.

Wilbur ducks out after him, a hundred more questions on his lips, unwilling to let Tommy go after that without _some_ sort of explanation.

Which is lucky, because if he hadn’t, he would’ve missed what happens next, and he never would’ve forgiven himself if he’d missed the chance to see Tommy spot Dream, beeline towards him, and deck him so hard his mask cracks.

Dream hits the ground hard, the one of his eyes that’s visible behind his freshly broken mask wide with absolute shock. Tommy is seemly frozen in place for a moment, standing over him, fists clenched at his sides. Wilbur can’t see his face, but his shoulders are tense.

Wilbur takes a moment to consider what he should do, and then snaps a screenshot to remember this moment by.

Tommy stares down at Dream for a moment longer, then bolts, sprinting off through the trees. Neither Wilbur nor Dream make any move to follow him, this time.

“What the hell,” Dream says, audibly stunned, as Tommy’s footsteps fade into the distance.

Wilbur manages to last five whole seconds before he cracks up laughing at the look on Dream’s face. He has to grab a nearby tree branch just to keep from landing on his ass for the second time this morning.

“What the _hell_ ,” Dream says again, and yanks his hood down to shadow his face before pulling his mask off and turning it over in his hands. It makes the accusatory look he shoots at Wilbur lack any intimidation at all. “Did _you_ know he can hit that hard?”

“Sure,” Wilbur says, which is a lie, but it’s fun to see Dream so off-balance, not least because the person who’s thrown him off so badly is _Tommy_. Tommy, who, much as Wilbur cares about him, has always been _very_ predictable.

He tries to cast his memory back to remember what, if anything, could have happened yesterday to prompt such a radical shift in behavior, but- well, _nothing_ happened yesterday. It was a perfectly normal day. But now here’s Tommy, crying all over Wilbur, punching Dream hard enough to _break his mask_ , and then sprinting off to look for Tubbo like he’ll die if he doesn’t.

“I’m gonna have to make a new mask,” Dream says, sounding a little mournful.

Wilbur ignores him. "Dream, have you seen Tubbo today?"

* * *

Finding Tubbo takes _hours_. It’s been long enough that Wilbur is just beginning to suspect the kid might be actively avoiding him when he manages to catch him gathering wood, neatly stacking logs into his inventory.

“Tubbo!” Wilbur says, clapping his hands, wincing a little when Tubbo startles hard enough at the noise to drop the latest block of wood on his foot. “Have you seen Tommy today?”

“…Yeah?” Tubbo says, picking up the log and giving Wilbur a look he can’t quite place. He might’ve thought it was caution if this wasn’t _Tubbo_ they were talking about.

“Great! Fantastic. Notice anything- odd? About, I don’t know, his behavior, things he was saying…?”

“Nnnnnno,” Tubbo says, and he might be a measurably _better_ liar than Tommy, but he’s still not good enough at it to fool Wilbur when he’s already in a highly suspicious sort of mood. “He, um. Seemed fine to me.”

Wilbur narrows his eyes. “Tubbo, he _hugged_ me this morning,” he says. “Tackled me and cried all over me like he was eight again.”

“Maybe he missed you?” Tubbo offers.

“Missed- _he saw me yesterday!_ ”

Tubbo shrugs. “Maybe he had a nightmare,” he suggests, which doesn’t really make any more sense. “But, um, listen, Wilbur, if there was anything- weird- about how Tommy’s acting, hypothetically… I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Hypothetically,” Wilbur repeats flatly.

“Mhm!” Tubbo nods earnestly. “Just- if there was anything wrong- which there’s not- it’s been resolved. Okay?”

Wilbur folds his arms. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you.”

“Nope!” Tubbo agrees, crossing to the next tree and giving it an assessing look before starting to collect the wood.

Wilbur frowns, a little distracted by the action. “What _do_ you need all that wood for, anyways? Making something?”

“Oh, Tommy and I are going to build a house!”

Wilbur blinks. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that. “You’re what?”

Tubbo smiles, big and bright. “We’re going to build a house!” he repeats. “Someplace a little farther away from here, just for us. Tommy’s idea, but I think it’ll be great!”

“ _Tommy’s_ idea?” He would buy it as Tubbo's suggestion, maybe, but- Tommy’s never been one to want to settle down in one place, to put work in for a home, especially one any distance removed from the center of the action.

 _Maybe he had a nightmare_ , Tubbo had said. If so, it must’ve been… quite a bad one.

“Yeah! I was surprised too, but he explained it to me, and… well, it made sense,” Tubbo says, something soft in his voice for a moment.

Wilbur is missing something here, he _knows_ he is, but- well. Tommy seems happy, and Tubbo seems happy, so whatever it is, he thinks he can probably live with it.

Tubbo finishes piling the rest of the logs into his bag, slings it over his shoulder, and turns to go with a wave. “See you around, Wilbur!”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in a haze at about four am when unable to sleep so it's not the best thing ever, but i'm a simple author with simple goals and they were 1. tommy gets to hug wilbur 2. dream gets punched and 3. tommy and tubbo get to be happy. 
> 
> i have another more serious time travel fix fic in progress that i'm going to start posting very soon as well, so consider this one a balance to that. i also have a dream smp sideblog at @[sixteenth-days](https://sixteenth-days.tumblr.com/) if you wanna come say hi!
> 
> thanks for reading!


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